Page 70 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

CASSANDRA BART VERY badly wanted someone to yell “Cut” or give some tiny indication that this was a low-budget action movie and not reality.

Right before the door to their informal cell was pried open, Tyler had told her to stay calm. “This is the cavalry arriving, babe. My dad knows people. Serious people.”

She couldn’t deny that they sounded serious. For the past few minutes—maybe longer?—they’d heard a series of teeth-rattling explosions and ceaseless gunfire that sounded like a popcorn machine running amok. Tyler, God help him, looked excited . How was that possible?

Cass had looked at his badly beaten face and said: “What if it’s not the cavalry? What if it’s somebody worse?”

Even if that was the case, Tyler insisted he’d handle it. “Baby, I can negotiate with anyone.” Exactly what an overconfident asshole would say in an action movie right before his head was blown off.

Spoiler alert: Tyler’s head wasn’t blown off.

But he did not have the chance to negotiate or even say a single charming word.

As soon as the door was blasted open, guns were pushed into their faces.

Cass could not see the men. There was too much smoke and frenzied activity.

And she and Tyler couldn’t move because their wrists were still cinched to the bed with hard plastic zip ties.

But not for long. Snip-snip —the zip ties were cut away.

Hoods were pulled over their heads. Cass heard Tyler groan in pain a second before she felt thick, rough hands on her shoulders forcing her to her knees.

And then a boot in the middle of her back sent her flying forward, and her face smashed into the floor.

Stunned, she was barely aware when they lifted her into some kind of stretcher or maybe a blanket—it was hard to tell when she was so disoriented. Then she was being moved, bouncing helplessly as the men hurried her out of the house.

Cass was loaded into what felt like the bed of a pickup truck.

She knew this feeling—her first vehicle, back in Odessa, Texas, had been a used pickup, and she and her friends would lie in the back of it, look up at the stars, and talk about their dreams. Later, at state fairs, she’d sing from that same flatbed, accompanied by a boom box playing instrumental Taylor Swift tracks.

Some part of Cass’s mind thought this was funny, her life coming full circle—flatbed to flatbed.

The ride was rough. She struggled to use her elbows and heels to steady herself, but the driver of the pickup kept swerving, speeding up, and braking hard. Cass bounced around for what felt like forever. Occasionally she bumped into Tyler, but he must have been unconscious because he didn’t speak.

Soon Cass was unconscious too.

When she woke up, the hood was off, and she was sitting up. The lights were way too bright, and her eyes refused to focus. Her wrists and ankles were zip-tied to a sturdy wooden chair. She became aware of all her injuries at once.

When her eyes finally focused, she was surprised to find herself on a film set.

That’s what it had to be, right? Granted, Cass didn’t see the usual gear; there were no lighting rigs or craft services.

But there was a digital camera on a tripod and a crew of bored-looking people standing around and staring at her as if waiting for her to speak her line.

What was her line? What was she supposed to say in this moment? And where was Tyler?

Her eyes found the person who looked most like an authority figure. The director, maybe? “Excuse me, can you tell me what’s happening?”

The authority figure glared at her. That’s because he was speaking to someone on the phone—the real authority, it turned out—and she had rudely interrupted him. “Blindfold them,” he told a minion.

And then he returned to his phone conversation. “We have the two of them,” he said. “One hundred percent.”